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A. M NES T Y. 






R E M A. !R K S 

OB 

Hon. GEO. C. McREE, of Miss. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DECEMBER 20, 1870. 

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The House having under consideration the Amnesty Bill, under the operation 
of the ten-minutes' rule — 

Mr. McKEE said : 

Mr. Speaker, believing as I do in universal amnesty, I advocate 
the passage of this bill. It is not all I desire. If I had my own 
way untrammeled I would make it far broader than it is. But 
I believe this is the best we can get at this session, and, as a prac- 
tical man, I will take what I can get. We rarely obtain all we 
desire at one effort, and whatever may be done hereafter, believing 
in amnesty full and free, I will not, in behalf of my constituents 
who are to be benefited, reject the advantages of this bill because 
it does not meet all the requirements of our case. I do not wish 
to grasp for all and lose everything. This is a great step in the 
right direction, and so far as it goes I accept it, while I shall con- 
tinue to vote as I have voted all along for individual amnesty, for 
special amnesty, for partial amnesty, and, whenever I can do so 
practically, I shall vote for universal amnesty. 

I wish to say in response to what has been said by the gentle- 
man from Teunessee [Mr. Prosser] that it is undoubtedly true 
that in our section of the country, in Mississippi and Tennessee, 
there are too many Kuklux outrages ; but I ask practical men if 
that is any good reason why disqualification should prevail ? Is 
it any reason, because men have been murdered, that punishment 
of the murderer should be disqualification from holding office? 



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The punishment is too ludicrous ; it is too absurd to say if a man 
commits an outrage like that the gentleman has spoken of he shall 
not hold office under the United States. 

Nor do I believe, like the gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. Duke,] 
that amnesty should be granted to the people of the South because 
they fought so bravely against the Government, even if they did 
believe they were right in so doing. Such logic would acquit all 
great criminals, and punish the lesser ones only. It would be 
but holding out a premium for even bolder struggles against the 
Government in the future. It is enough, in all conscience, to 
give amnesty for disloyalty, without asking that that amnesty 
shall be given as a meritorious reward for the very boldness and 
persistence of such disloyalty. Such talk, however flattering to 
our Southern constituents, will never bring about the amnesty for 
which we labor. I am not sent here to clamor over wrongs, real or 
fancied. 

My constituents want useful practice, not vain repinings or idle 
theories. We want votes, uot eloquence ; we want results, not 
resolutions; we want in our favor not empty declamation, but de- 
cisive action. There is no force in those men who dream brave 
dreams yet live resultless lives. It is idle folly, and to the people 
of the South it is gross injury, to make this bill so broad that it can- 
not go through the narrow gateway of yonder Senate. A defeat 
is just as disastrous to us whether it comes from open enemies or 
ill-advised friends. If we do not load down this bill we can carry 
it through the House, and secure at least so much of advantage. 
If it passes the Senate and becomes a law, the exceptions are so few 
that we will have practically almost universal amnesty. And at 
any and all times hereafter, if any one, especially any of the 
Democracy, who now denounce this bill and aspire to be the 
champions par excellence of universal amnesty, will introduce a 
bill for universal amnesty, I will go with them, work with them, 
and vote with them, though I should be the only Republican on 
this floor so doing. 

As a Republican, I wish this amnesty bill to pass a Republican 
Congress as a Republican measure. Our Chicago platform con- 
templates the passage of an amnesty bill, and, in its own lan- 
guage, looked forward to the day when all disabilities imposed 



Q 

upon the late rebels should be removed. That day has come. The 
^tirne is now. Let us give amnesty freely and cheerfully. There 
is often more in the manner of the giving than in the gift itself. 
"Delay is but injurious to the Republican party. It places the Ke- 
-publicans of the South in a false and unpleasant position. It 
makes us almost enemies and aliens among our neighbors. It 
is the worst of political blunders to imagine that people can be 
forced to love a party. You cannot compel friendship. He who 
would have friends must himself be friendly. Any party seeking 
the support of the people must seek it through their friendship 
and respect, not through their hates or their fears. If the Repub- 
lican party wishes to build itself up in the South, if it wishes to 
perpetuate its power, if it wishes to secure a lodgment in the hearts 
of the people, it must do it by love and respect, not by disfranchise- 
ment and hate. It must learn the lesson, and learn it well, that — 

" Every gate that's barred to Hate 
Shall open wide to Love." 

Men who are not statesmen, but politicians only, can learn a les- 
son from our Mississippi elections. We went into the canvass as 
avowed, open Republicans, standing upon the straight Republican 
platform, yielding no point of the Republican faith, and we also 
emblazoned on our banners those magic words of talismanic power 
to white and black, " universal suffrage, universal amnesty," 
and, like Constantine of old, "by this sign we conquered." 

Why delay the passage of this bill? Every one in this Hall 
knows that sooner or later amnesty will prevail. If this Congress 
will not pass it the next one surely will. Then why higgle and 
chaffer with inevitable fate? Why oppose the certain march of 
destiny ? Is it because politicians are trying to make trading 
capital of it ? The heart of the American people is too great and 
too liberal to allow its generous sentiments to be huckstered in the 
market-place by trading politicians. 

As a Union soldier, who served through all the years of bloody 
war, I advocate this bill. There are other lessons to be learned in 
war than the lessons of passion and hate. Courtesy and magna- 
nimity to a brave enemy and generosity to a fallen foe are the les- 
sons which every true soldier learned. And furthermore, as a citi- 
zen and Representative of Mississippi, I earnestly plead for the 




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passage of this bill. It would be an act of grace to the constituents, 
and also of favor and justice to the Representatives. I do not 
wish to have it said that I represent upon this floor a partially- 
gagged and muzzled constituency. It is contrary to the princi- 
ples of a free Government. Every Representative should be 
amenable to the judgment of all of his constituents. 

In considering this matter, let us put behind us the hate and 
bitterness of the war. While we heed and remember the stern 
lessons it taught, let us try to bury out of sight the passions 
and prejudices which it engendered ; let this House set the noble 
example. Let us extend the olive branch of peace, shorn of not 
a single leaf. Let us try to exorcise and banish forever the dark 
demons of hate and passion now flitting through the South, and 
welcome back the white-robed angel of peace, " whose wings shall 
scatter healings through the land." Then will the Southern 
States come up to the full measure of their greatness, and the pen 
of wise-judging history shall record that the American nation 
arose from the death-struggle ennobled by patriotism and loyalty, 
purified by war and commotion, gloried by amnesty and pardon. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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